Artificial Intelligence(AI) is that branch of computer science that deals with designing computer system that exhibit some of the characteristics associated with intelligence on human behaviors such as, understanding natural language, reasoning, solving problems, robotics and so on. The most developed component of artificial intelligence today is probably the expert system. An expert system is defined as a computer program that embodies organized knowledge concerning some specific domain of human expertise and programmed to perform convincingly as an advisory consultant in the given domain with self-explanation of reasoning on demand. This paper describes general concept of artificial intelligence and expert system and investigates applicability of expert system to ship design.